Watsonx Orders helps restaurant operators maximize revenue with AI-powered order taker for drive-thrus

We’re happy to announce IBM watsonx Orders, an AI-powered voice agent for drive-thrus of quick-service eating places. Powered by the newest know-how from IBM Analysis, watsonx Orders is designed to assist restaurant house owners clear up persistent labor challenges by dealing with virtually all orders and interactions with out the assistance of human cashiers, whereas delighting restaurant friends with fast service and correct orders. 

Watsonx Orders joins IBM’s watsonx household of AI Assistants that enable you simply deploy and scale conversational AI to maximise income and decrease prices. It’s finely tuned to perceive quick meals menu objects, customization choices, restricted time provides and promotions. Built-in into the company and restaurant-level factors of sale, watsonx Orders can inform prospects what’s out there—and what’s not—at that second. And it routes last orders to the money register and screens and printers within the kitchen.

Throughout the trade, greater than 70 % of the income for quick-service eating places comes by way of drive-thrus. Operators contemplate the drive-thru a very powerful gross sales channel by far, much more so than gross sales contained in the restaurant. What’s extra, the order taker place within the drive-thru is without doubt one of the most troublesome and tense among the many crew—which is why it’s additionally one of the troublesome positions to fill for each shift. So when restaurant house owners can’t discover somebody to fill the order-taker place, both due to unfilled job opening or absenteeism, they face disastrous income drops for shifts or entire days.

That’s why we designed watsonx Orders to be thought of a priceless crew member: correct, well mannered, speedy and dependable 24/7.

How watsonx Orders works

Watsonx Orders is a mix of {hardware} and software program put in within the restaurant. It understands the total menu of the restaurant chains and is aware of which objects can be found at that particular restaurant by season and time of day. It is aware of the nicknames of each merchandise and the way prospects can customise them. And we constantly replace the software program to concentrate on restricted time provides nationwide or domestically.

Upon friends pulling as much as the outside menu board, watsonx Orders greets them. Prospects can begin the dialog by saying, “I’m choosing up a cellular order,” or “I’m a rewards member.” Or then can begin ordering: “I would like a cheeseburger, chocolate shake, giant fries, no onions.” Because of watsonx’s pure language processing capabilities, the agent asks the client to specify the dimensions for the shake, and is aware of that the “no onions” is a customization choice for the cheeseburger. 

In contrast to many AI voice brokers, watsonx Orders doesn’t convert every spoken phrase into textual content for evaluation. As an alternative, it converts audio into phonemes—the person sounds that make up phrases, such because the “ha” in “hamburger”—then into orders, vastly dashing up speech recognition. We’ve additionally used generative AI methods to think about the a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of ways in which people can categorical the thought “I’d prefer to order a hamburger.” We use the newest in neural internet know-how to dam noise from freeways, airports, railroads, stereos and automobiles within the different lane.

On the backend, we join watsonx Orders to the restaurant’s know-how stack. As soon as we’ve gathered the order ticket, we convert it into instructions that the purpose of gross sales (money register) understands, and we ship the order to the kitchen workers by way of shows and printers.

IBM makes and installs all of the {hardware} and software program itself for a clean supply to the restaurant proprietor.

The advantages of watsonx Orders

Within the subject, watsonx Orders is as correct as a human order taker. However it could work each shift, every single day, and each vacation. As such, the restaurant proprietor features the equal of greater than eight hours of labor every single day, liberating up the crew to focus on delivering even higher customer support. 

Simply as importantly, watsonx Orders takes orders shortly—it speaks in a cheerful, well mannered voice, is aware of how you can maintain the dialog quick, and helps the client towards a choice with out being pushy. Restaurant house owners have instructed us pace of service and automobile counts per hour are among the many most necessary measures of operations. So our crew is continuously experimenting to shave split-seconds off every order with out sacrificing accuracy. 

The system additionally is aware of how you can upsell or promote extra objects to prospects for extra income with every order.

Ought to one thing go unsuitable, or if the visitor insists on talking with a human, the AI agent can gracefully hand the dialog over with none want for patrons to repeat themselves. 

Get began with watsonx Orders

IBM continues to drive innovation for watsonx Orders to attain the very best degree of accuracy and quick service at each restaurant. We’re eager about working with the company workplaces of quick-service restaurant manufacturers to know their ache factors and customise the product to satisfy their particular wants.

Improve your drive-thru operations with watsonx Orders